ple who adore the
spirit of Erib. Towards the north we fall in with the Lazzi, and
all those fierce natives who are entrenched like vultures amid the
fastnesses of the Caucasus. Again, in the South we discover the
wandering Arabs, the pirates of the desert, and the mountaineers of
Lebanon, who live in a state of perpetual discord. Over this immense
line of countries centuries have passed, and left no trace behind;
all that the ancients and the crusaders have related to us of them, is
typical of their condition at this day. The bows and arrows, the armour,
exhibited as objects of curiosity in our museums, are still in use
among them. It is only by chance, or by profiting by their intestine
divisions, that the authority of the Porte is recognised. The Pashas are
mostly hereditary, and live in a state of perpetual insurrection. Thus
from the shores of the Archipelago to the banks of the Euphrates and
the Tigris, civilisation and vegetation appear to obey the same law of
decrease.

It is incontestable that Syria and the Pashalics on the confines of
Upper Asia are of no real importance to the Sultan; and that the pride
of this monarch would be the only sufferer by their loss. Desolation has
reached such a point in the Ottoman Empire, that it is almost impossible
to regenerate her, unless the branches of the tree, lopped of all
those parts so eccentric by their position, are detached from it, and
organised into independent states. Towards the North, Russia has
pushed on her battalions as far as Erzeroum, but it will be found
more difficult, to govern Armenia from St. Petersburg than from
Constantinople. In politics, the calculation of distances is an
important element. In the South of Asia, Egypt lays claim to Syria,
and that part of Caramania situated between Mount Taurus and the sea--a
territory in which she will find those resources she at present stands
so much in need of, such as timber for shipbuilding, etc., a Christian
population, among whom the seeds of European civilisation will be more
easily implanted. She will thus form an empire that will one day become
powerful, if not prematurely exhausted by that system of monopoly so
rigorously put in force by her present ruler.

The history of the quarrels of the Pasha of Acre with Mehemet Ali,
justifies, in some degree, the pretensions of the latter. Abdallah Pasha
had rendered himself famous by his extortions, and in 1822 took it
into his head to seize Damascus. The nei